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axios  |  As devastating wildfires raged across Los Angeles County this week, firefighters battling the blazes encountered fire hydrants that had no water.

Why it matters: The dry fire hydrants sparked political outrage and illustrated just how unprepared municipal water systems are to combat the sorts of large-scale urban wildfires that have become more frequent with climate change.

• Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday ordered an independent investigation into the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP), the nation's largest municipal utility, over hydrants and water supply issues. DWP provides water for more than four million L.A. residents and serves Pacific Palisades, a wealthy area of Los Angeles where much of the destruction took place.
• "While water supplies from local fire hydrants are not designed to extinguish wildfires over large areas, losing supplies from fire hydrants likely impaired the effort to protect some homes and evacuation corridors," Newsom said. "We need answers to how that happened."
• President-elect Trump has suggested Newsom was to blame for the dry hydrants — claiming without evidence that he blocked water supply to the south of the state with the state's fish conservation efforts. The governor and other experts have sharply rejected the claims.
• "We are looking at a situation that is just completely not part of any domestic water system design," Marty Adams, a former DWP general manager and engineer, told The New York Times.

The big picture: Fire hydrants running out of water isn't unheard of during severe wildfires, said Faith Kearns, a water and wildfire expert with the Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University. Similar instances were reported during wildfires in Maui, Colorado and Oregon,

• "It's something that we have definitely started to see as, essentially, these wildland fires move into urban areas and become urban conflagrations," Kearns said.
• "Our urban water supply is meant to deal more with things like a single house being on fire," she added.

Why did the fire hydrants run dry?

Firefighters battling the Palisades Fire earlier this week encountered swaths of fire hydrants with no water after the three water tanks supplying the Pacific Palisades ran dry by 3 a.m. Wednesday, Janisse Quiñones, chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said at a press briefing later that day.

• The area's water system had been pushed "to the extreme," she said. "Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure."
• The problem persisted for hours while wildfires ravaged the area, the New York Times reported.